


The Defiant Ones

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Defiantverse [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two men, from two different teams, wind up in each other's company in an attempt to escape an increasingly pointless war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They'll Kill Each Other in Five Miles

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, named after the film.
> 
> First person, Spy POV. My first serious piece for the TF2 fandom, originally written on LJ under the username GlasgowSmiles.

“You want a drink?” I waved the canteen towards him.

He shook his head. “Nah, you hang onto it for now. I’ll be right.”

“Let me know when you change your mind...” I shrugged.

We were following the train tracks. He’d abandoned his transparent attempts at staying just behind me, and I was now watching his back, and not sticking knives into it. The experience was novel, and aside from the baking desert aspect, not unpleasant.

His posture was atrocious, not even in a worn-out way, we’d only been walking through the heat of the day for a couple of hours, just... the way he bent low, eyeing the horizon and loping forwards, alert, a rifle dangling from one hand.

We stopped, after another long stretch of empty track, and he took off his hat just briefly, fanning himself, then dropping it back onto his head. His hand extended back towards me, wordless, and I placed the canteen in it.

He took half a swig, then passed it back. “You drink.”

I did. “You’re the man with the gun.”

He snorted. Aware after all that I could be armed, that I had been following close behind him for... miles now, perhaps.

“Go ahead and take another.” He nodded.

“Shouldn’t we make it last?”

A quick shake of the head this time. “Common misconception. Nah, parsing it out only means you’ll dehydrate yourself before you can find a source of water.”

“... Can we find a source of water? This is not exactly—cool mountain streams, or—or—“

“Done it before. Record’s a week. That’s one week in the desert, without going back to my van. Just me, two canteens, a lighter, a rifle, and a knife.”

“Yes, but we have one canteen. And there are two of us.”

“Well... I still have a rifle. And a knife. How ‘bout you?”

“A knife also.” I admitted, bringing it out. “A cigarette lighter. Nothing else that will be of use.”

“At this point, mate, I’d rather die trying than go back.”

We were traveling together. We had no friends among our own respective teams, and no inclination to remain in what was rapidly devolving into some kind of sick game at all of our expense. I didn’t even try to talk to the others. I suspect he may have attempted to, over on his side. He may not have been close to them, but at least his team did not suspect him outright. An occupational hazard, but still...

“Look up there,” He pointed towards a structure, some way from the tracks. “C’mon.”

I followed. Once I had made my escape, there was little else I could do. I wanted to survive. Of course I wanted to survive. But I hadn’t been prepared for the... the vastness of it. I had been teleported in, as had we all, to the current location. I could have found the train tracks on my own. I could have followed them in the direction of civilization. I would have died long before I reached it.

The structure was a wooden building, perhaps the size of a small house, set up on stilt-like legs. We ascended the rickety staircase, taking the turn at the landing, going up the even longer set of stairs to the walkway at the top. Eventually we came to a door.

“Wonder why it’s abandoned.” He poked about a bit.

“It’s like... like a half of one of our... locations. Like it was never finished.”

“Guess they figured they had enough. Or it was too close to the one we just broke out of.”

Would we be hunted down, for, as he put it, ‘breaking out’? Would it matter? It might even be better. Still... in the—the places, during the battles, you can always come back. If you run, out in the desert... there’s no coming back from death out here. Maybe not even if our teams hunted us down and killed us. Probably not. We’d only try again, a liability.

Inside was dusty and dark. Cool, at least compared to outside. There were a few crates lying around.

“What if we are more than a week from civilization? Your van was blown up. No driving, no going back to it for supplies, just...”

He leveled a glare at me. “Then I break my record. Your demo blew my van, so don’t you go complaining to me about that.”

“Well, I didn’t tell him to do it. I wasn’t anywhere near him when it happened. I was in your—I mean... Well, I was doing my job. Like you were doing yours.”

“Look, we’re... we’re in this right now.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Two of us. Best thing for it’s to... just... Any animosity between us is gonna have to be part of a different life.”

“You have nothing to fear from me.” I raised my hands, palm out. “I need you to survive. I am highly motivated to not kill you.”

“Well that’s fine, but it’s not what I mean. I mean... you got to trust me as well.”

I looked away. “I am... not in the habit of trusting anyone.”

“You need me to survive.” He pointed out.

“Need does not mean trust.”

“I know what I’m doing, and you don’t.”

“That doesn’t change—“

“If I tell you ya need to do something,” He was pinching his nosebridge again, clearly exasperated.

“Of course, you are the expert. And it is survival. In that respect, yes.”

“All right. And I need you to trust me to... I’m not going to off you, right?”

“It would make your life considerably easier.” I shrugged one shoulder. “You would have twice the water. I would not... slow you down, or—“

“No. If they see we’re gone and think they’ll follow, you’re the only one watching my back. You need me more than I need you, but I still... you could be useful. And take that bloody thing off.”

I hesitated a moment—through this whole venture, I had gone so far as to sleep in the balaclava!—but I capitulated. The rush of cool air was like the sweet kiss of Heaven to a man who’d been in Hell. I watched as he stripped to the waist, and after a moment did the same.

“Sleep. Best time to do it, and who knows when we’ll have a set-up this nice... could be a long trek. I’ll give you three hours, then wake ya.”

I winced a little as I spread my jacket out on the floor, but it was better than lying down in the dust and splinters. I balled my shirt up as a very poor pillow and tried to settle myself.

I watched him prowl around the room. I never really took the time to admire him before, merely assess him as a threat. That, or eliminate him as the same. He doesn’t walk but he stalks, there is an economy of movement reminiscent of a cat. Clearly the man was meant to be a hunter, and if I have to trust anyone with my life out in the desert, then... well, former enemy or not, he is the best option I can think of.

And... the other thing. The sort of admiration I have avoided for a long time. The sort that gets a man in my profession killed. Oh, I have aimed to engender such an admiration, many times. And I do not mean to say I have lived the life of a monk, by any means. But the people I sleep with are people who are attractive in bland and general ways, beautiful women more often than not, who are more invested in me by far than I am in them. Or unattractive people who have something I need. There is a physical release, and some harmless fun, but it has been long years since I felt any acute longing.

I have never longed for someone I couldn’t have.

No... once. I was maybe fifteen, sixteen. I knew I would go on to be a spy then—I had a penchant for some aspects of the job even from childhood. At the age of seven I once delivered a message, and though I don’t know the full import, I do know that it was during the Occupation, and the event may have presaged my entire career. But when I was fifteen, or sixteen, I was not yet any sort of master of seduction, and while I had charmed a few girls and found that fine...

He was a boy. Tanned and lean and handsome, and he spoke in a thick Bourguignon, though from where out East he came exactly, I never found out. His skill in attracting girls was equal to mine, and owed more to looks than to effort, though he was still far more passionate about them than I. He loved them exclusively. He would not have looked at me.

The same way he will never look at me.

Damn it all.


	2. I Been Mad All My Natural Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (and you'll have to forgive my little bits of poorly-remembered French... it's been a long time since I took classes in it, and I've been informed that it's quite shaky in places)

I woke before he was near enough to touch me, but continued feigning sleep flawlessly until he prodded my shoulder. He did not try to shake me awake. He stayed an arm’s length away, perhaps assuming that my response to being roused would involve stabbing.

Which is not entirely unfair.

No, what is unfair is how much even a brief second of touch affected me. It isn’t just him, though he is attractive, and I won’t demean us both by trying to lie to myself. Mostly, perhaps, it is the fact that since coming to this desert, I have not allowed anyone to touch me. The nearest thing to friendly contact has been necessary medical attention. More than that, violence. I have been here just long enough, I suppose, that a touch which does not hurt is strange to me, and I crave it. More than I ever thought I would, I want some kind of simple comfort. Even before this, the desert, any of it, I was never what you could call the ‘touchy feely’ kind. Even now it isn’t as though I want to... to hug the man. But I want to think that a camaraderie might develop, might include a pat on the shoulder, or a hand up from the ground.

“Awake yet?” He asked.

“Yes. Er... Thank you.”

“Here,” He offered me a hand, and for a moment I just goggled at him. “What?”

“Nothing. I just... I did not expect the help.” And for pity’s sake, don’t tell him it was as if he read your mind. Don't you look odd enough already?

“Wake me when the sun comes up.” He bedded down on his own clothes. “Drink the rest of the water, found a spot where we can fill it up before we go.”

“Really?”

“Just the other side of that wall there,” He pointed to a wall that went halfway across the room. “Sink. Checked it, still runs, it’s good.”

“D’ac.”

“Pack of cards on the crate there, you need to go a few rounds of Solitaire to stay awake on your own.”

I just nodded dumbly some more—he really must think I’m a drooling moron now!—and shuffled them absently as I watched his breathing even out.

In repose, he is beautiful. The element of that primal, catlike movement is gone, but with his hat covering his eyes, I am at least free to gaze at the rest of him without fear of reproach. Just out from under the brim of his hat, his mouth, relaxed. There is always a sort of tightness there when he is awake—or at least, at every time I have seen his face—and a serenity to the laxness of the muscles when he sleeps.

His long legs are crossed at the ankle, his hands are folded and resting just below his chest. He is lean, but still just bulkier than I am. Wiry, though. Some of the tautness drops away as he sleeps, though it never quite leaves him. I would not be surprised to learn that in sleep, I am always ready to snap. I’m used to living that way. Indeed, I cannot remember not living that way. The habit was ingrained in early childhood. In the end, it was as well I never managed to drop it, all things considered.

I drank the rest of the water and refilled the canteen. I drank a bit more and topped it off. I even played cards just a bit, though they did not capture my attention. I watched out the window, but there was little change to the landscape. At least, no one was coming after us. At least there was that.

I nudged his foot to wake him, when night fell. He was on his feet before I could offer him a hand.

“Evening.” I said. “No one has come after us. If anyone has set out to find us, they were incredibly stupid about it. No one has come by along the tracks, much less towards the... the this place.”

He grinned. “Go on and get dressed. Temperature’ll drop soon enough.”

“Soon enough.” I snorted. “It cannot be soon enough for my tastes.”

To illustrate, I shoved the balaclava into my pocket rather than putting it on again. I shook my shirt and jacket out as best I could before getting dressed, and watched as he did not bother.

We walked along the tracks, the moonlight offering enough to see by. He stopped me once, dropping onto one knee and firing his rifle. I did not see his target until it dropped.

A hawk.

“Well, it’s not exactly good eating...” He grinned, only half-apologetic.

“I don’t think I want to...”

“Last time you ate?”

“Dinner.” I said. Just over twenty four hours. I was sure we’d both gone longer.

He gathered some dried grass anyway. “Lighter? Don’t turn your nose up at it, we’re gonna have to eat when we can. I might not get something tomorrow. I might not the day after. Even if I did, no guaranteeing it’s enough for a meal. Course, you're welcome to hold out for scorpion...”

“I’ll handle the fire.” I said, scrounging up a bit more weeds from between the railroad ties. “I am not cleaning that bird.”

He laughed at that, and set to work, kukri shearing off feathers and ribbons of skin before hacking the hawk into sections. He went back over, plucking out any remaining feathers. I tried not to watch the cleaning process.

Funny... I had killed men. And I had cooked before, of course. I had even watched my aunt kill, clean, and prepare chickens. Why this put me off, I couldn’t say. Perhaps because a chicken at least you are meant to eat, and this...

Well, not like it was poisonous.

I mean, not that I know of.

It wasn't scorpion, which is a point in anything's favour.

He wiped the kukri on his thigh, spearing the largest piece of meat on it again and holding it over the admittedly-weak campfire, while the other pieces sat on a kerchief I hadn’t even known he’d had.

There were pieces too small to stay on the blade, some which could be held on bone, some which he discarded, tossing into scrubby brush for other predators. The salvageable meat we cooked to toughness. Better than risking a mouthful of raw bird.

He shoved the kerchief back into his pocket afterwards, seemed amused by my visible disgust. And we walked on.

 

\---/-/---

 

During the heat of the day, we found a small rocky outcropping, just enough to slide under, to nap in the dirt, in the jagged sliver of shade it afforded us. There was no room, and it was difficult to sleep with him so close, with his leg alongside mine, his foot resting against my knee.

It made me jumpy, hard to still. It seems silly... obviously it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as having someone at my back. It is the next worse thing. I think because, if my legs are impeded, I can’t run. Still, there is no helping it now.

Perhaps he suspects, that he is driving me just a little crazy. Not why, or I suppose he’d give up on having someone to watch his back and kill me as I slept. Take my lighter, perhaps also my knife, all the water, and just go on without me.

No. Whatever he suspects, it isn’t the truth.

Eventually, I slept. It was fitful, and I was only too glad to be roused for my turn to watch.

“Wake me,” He started.

“Nightfall.” I nodded. “There is still a moon tonight.”

“Yeah. Hope it doesn’t wane too far ‘fore we get to where we’re going.”

“No. I do not much look forward to running through the desert a l’aveuglette.”

He blinked at me. “Nah. Probably not.”

And then he slept. Soundly, the bastard.


	3. Only the Meanness Shines Through

“All right?”

“A ma connaissance.” I shrugged.

He blinked at me again, this time over the top edge of his sunglasses.

“Yes. As far as I know, everything is fine. Still no sign of anyone as we slept. Sorry. I...”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize to me.” He shrugged. “I only even speak English, you’re the one doing all the work most of the time.”

“No, I... I am fluent in four languages. I...” I shook my head.

“More water.” He ordered. “Enjoy it, next we find won’t be so good.”

It was warm, practically hot, metallic tasting. I did not like the idea of finding worse water than this. Where it was we were going to find this water still niggled at the back of my mind. Suppose we didn’t?

We walked for hours without speaking. A couple of times we paused, sat for a brief moment, but mostly we just moved on.

His arm came out, blocking me, and I froze. This time I saw what he was looking at, though not well. A bit of movement in the shadows, a ways from the tracks. Some small creature taking shelter near a dried and withered shrub.

“Are you going to shoot it?” I whispered.

He shook his head, held up a finger.

I fell silent.

I followed him as he followed the animal—a rabbit? Even with the near-full moon, it found shadows to hide in. It must have been a rabbit, though. After a while, he placed a hand on my chest.

“Don’t move from this spot.” He whispered, leaning back, the words hot against my ear.

I didn’t move. It was entirely possible I couldn’t. He crouched down, skittered forward in the sand for a bit. There was a rise, and he disappeared past it. I waited for him to come back. Dawn was starting to break.

“Canteen.” He demanded, and I handed it over.

“You found water?”

“Anything living out here’s got to know where there’s water. Plants we’ve been coming across so far’ve been too dry to still be getting any, or they go too deep to dig.”

“So we have water.” I took a step in the direction he’d come.

“Ah!” He placed his hand on my chest again. “Can’t see the tracks from out there, but I can see you. I’d feel a bit better knowing we’re not going to go wandering off blind, hey?”

He took a drink of what was left of the water, then poured the rest over my head.

“Charming.” I raised one eyebrow.

He just laughed. “Be nice later. Sun coming up.”

He pulled his kerchief out, stared at it, then stuffed it back in his pocket with a groan. “Don’t suppose you’ve got one?”

I did. It was silk. I was reluctant to surrender it.

“Will you be putting dead things in it?”

“Ah... no.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Was more focused on the water, actually. No dead things this time ‘round.”

I handed him my handkerchief, with slightly diminished reluctance.

“Cheers. Be right back.” And with that he scampered off again. He returned with the canteen, my now-sopping wet and dirty silk handkerchief draped across the back of his neck, and a handful of mud.

I was not entirely sure which to address first.

I handled my dilemma by spluttering at him for a bit.

“Yeah.” He handed me the canteen, then the handkerchief. “Figured you’d rather get this dirty than drink sand, mate.”

I tried not to think about the damage done as I pocketed my handkerchief, and eyed the mud.

“Purely practical.” He grinned far too broadly for my tastes, and slapped a large dollop onto my nose. And laughed.

“How is this practical?” I demanded, immediately upon regaining my control of the English language.

“Sun’ll be up, remember? Might not find any kind of a shelter. It may not be much, but it’ll keep your skin from peeling off. Unless you wanted to become a French fry...”

“They’re not really French.” I muttered darkly, crossing my arms.

“You’re welcome.”

“I am not thanking you for attacking me with mud!”

He just shrugged and smiled.

“I’m not.”

“Isn’t the worst thing I’ve attacked you with.”

I shuddered. “You don’t even get to speak right now. I feel defiled. Don’t! It’s... less defiled than that, but still. The principle—The—“

“I’m not apologizing for keeping your face from coming off in great red sheets. I’ll say sorry about the hankie if you really want, but like I said, it’s that or drink silt.”

“No, that’s... that’s an acceptable sacrifice.”

“I mean, I’d apologize if it was from a lady-friend or something.”

“No... no. I... It’s easier to not have—No.”

“Right. Well then. Any luck and there’ll be a station out here somewhere...” He squinted into the distance.

“I don’t think there’s much call for a train station in the middle of the desert.”

“Huh? Hm. Yeah, reckon.” He shrugged.

 

\---/-/---

 

We sat in the shade from a Mann billboard, until it moved too far, and we moved on as well. Another night, another half a day. We were out of water now, and despite the constant protesting from my stomach, I was not ready to attempt eating scorpion.

“You’re... you’re a bit o’ all right, you know that?” He smiled weakly at me.

“Oh. Um... thank you.”

“Forget it.” A shrug. “I just figured... if we are going to die out here, and we might... and I’m sorry for it...”

“No.” I shook my head. “You’ll find water again.”

“Nothing came out last night. No birds, no bloody fucking rabbits, haven’t even seen a lizard in yonks. And now we’re out of water and I don’t know if I’ll be able to shoot straight if something does... if something does...”

I slapped him. “You’ll do whatever it is you have to do. It hasn’t been a week yet, has it?”

He rubbed his cheek, a grin creeping back onto his face. “Huh. Didn’t think that’d happen...”

“You should have. What’s the matter with you?”

“Dehydrated.”

“We haven’t been out of water that long, have we?”

His gaze slid away from mine.

“... Have we? I suppose it takes less time in the desert, but it seemed like we only just... Sniper?”

“Been giving you most of it.”

“Idiot.” I thought about slapping him again, but restrained myself. “What made you think that was a sound strategy? If one of us is going to get dehydrated, did it occur to you that it should be the one who doesn’t need to locate our next source of water, or shoot down our food?”

“Just... didn’t want you getting... You’re not used to it, and—“

“And you thought you’d protect me? Well, that’s just fabulous! Too bad you didn’t also teach me how to be a self-sufficient crazy bushman while you were giving me all of our water, then maybe I could get out of here!”

He stormed off without another word, loping up a slight hill, veering just off from the path we’d been following along the train tracks. I watched him still at the crest, then he leapt in the air with a shout.

“I told you! What did I tell you?” He turned back to me, grinning.

“You told me we were going to die in the desert because you are an idiot.” I reminded him, hand on hip.

“Before all that. About finding a station. Well, a house.”

“There’s a house?” I ran to catch up to him. Down in a big dip in the earth, sitting in its own little dustbowl, tiny and perfect. A house.

We both ran then, hollering like complete fools. Behind the house there was a well, and a pump, and I watched him skidding down the incline ahead of me, waving his hat in the air, and my heart swelled a little.

Mostly I’m sure because we had a shot at survival, but...

 

\---/-/---

 

“The house is abandoned.”

He turned to look at me over his shoulder. He was shirtless, and dripping wet, leaning over the edge of the well with the canteen in one hand and the bucket in the other.

“Pump’s broke.” He might have blushed a bit. “Abandoned?”

“Apparently this godforsaken place is unlivable. Still, it’s a house. No electricity, no plumbing, but...”

“Beautiful.” He grinned. “C’mere.”

I did so, reluctantly. This time, he pulled the edge of my ruined handkerchief from my pocket, dunking it in the bucket from the well and wiping away the last cracked and dried bits of mud from my face.

“Huh. Guess you still got pretty burned out there.”

“Yes, probably. Most of it came off.” I tried to sound natural. Burned, nothing. I’m sure I was blushing terribly. He went so far as to tuck the handkerchief back into my pocket when he was done.

“There a tub?”

“Yes. A bathtub and a washtub. Which did you want?”

“Bring the washtub out.” He dumped the last of the water from the bucket over his head, then lowered it back down into the well.

I brought the washtub out, drinking deep from the canteen he handed me. I could hear buckets of water hitting the inside of the tub, and when he’d filled it halfway, he motioned to me to grab one end, and he took the other.

We used the washtub to fill the bathtub, and then the bucket from the well to fill the washtub once more, and we drank and refilled the canteen and drank some more, until we both felt we might be sick from it.

Back inside the house, we bathed, mostly unselfconscious, in each other’s company. Whoever had abandoned the place had left it half-furnished—the towels that had been left behind were dusty from neglect, but better than nothing at all after a quick beating, and once we were clean, we did our best to get the dirt and sweat and, in his case, blood, out of our clothes. There was a clothesline outside, and he walked out stark naked to hang things up.

There was a table in the little kitchen, and a couple of cans whose labels had long ago been peeled off, and one chair that didn’t seem to belong, and the bed.

He opened the cans and flopped down on the bed in nothing but a towel, motioning for me to join him.

“Is this... awkward at all?” I asked.

“Is it?”

“No. No, of course not. I just meant...” I adjusted my towel. The little unselfconsciousness I had managed during the course of necessary toilet was gone now. “What is it?”

“One soup. One beans. Smells decent. Not old enough to’ve gone bad, reckon.”

I nodded and took one of the cans from him.


	4. The Warden's Got a Sense of Humor

“It all seems too convenient.” I sighed, leaning back against my pillow.

“You want half?” He held up the can of beans.

“A votre aise.” I switched cans with him. The soup had not been all that good anyway, though I didn’t expect much more from the beans.

“You’re really gonna pick apart the first bit of good luck we’ve come across?”

“I am, if it seems like...”

“Like it’s too convenient, yeah.” He rolled his eyes.

“Like we are being set up for something.”

“Wish they’d abandoned a car or something.”

“Or a spoon.” I grimaced, attempting to drink beans out of the can. It was... disgusting.

Well, still better than that hawk, I suppose.

Better than a scorpion, definitely.

He laughed. “A spoon? The fact that we’ve found water, shelter, food, that’s too convenient, but a spoon’d be just about right?”

“What can I say?”

“You can get a couple hours sleep.”

I regarded him seriously for a moment. “And have you been parceling that out unfairly as well?”

“Nah, I—Well, night falls when it falls, but I try and keep shifts pretty even.”

I crossed my arms. “You have a way of... ah... announcing your color, it’s...” I snapped my fingers a couple of times.

“Announcing my colour? Think it’s pretty well announced. Or would be...”

“The... the cards on the table?” I tried. “I am saying you have been bad at lying. Sorry, idioms have been... I think I am tired.”

“You oughta be exhausted.” He snorted. “I let you sleep a little longer. Not that much. It’s not even the same as the water, I’m used to not sleeping.”

“Wake me in time.” I settled down. “I do not need your protection. I do not need your protection much in the same way that I do not need additional holes in my head.”

“... Close enough.”

“Shut up.” I snapped. A little anger was safe. A little anger was a far better course than a little lust.

“Go ahead and sleep.” He took the can out of my hand, setting it on the floor by his side of the bed.

I yawned. Sleep was sounding better every time it came up. “Can I tell you something first?”

“Sure thing.”

“J’ai un faible...” I murmured, turning onto my side, another yawn stealing over me. “J’ai un faible pour vous, et... et j’ai peur d’avoir le Coeur sur les levres. Mais...”

“Uh... don’t speak French, sporto.”

“Oui, d’ac. I know.” I sighed, pulling the edge of the sheet up over my bare shoulder. “I wanted to tell you, but I did not want you to know.”

“Sleep.” He reached over, ruffling my hair. I should have been furious. Instead I rather liked it.

 

\---/-/---

 

“HOLY DOOLEY!” He bolted into a sitting position, grabbing his rifle from me.

“Sorry...” I blushed. “Ah... a false alarm. I thought—through the window—followed—“

“... False alarm?” He stared me down.

“Go back to sleep.”

“... Does this false alarm have any relation to the bullet hole in the floor with eight legs?” He nodded towards it.

“Ah. You... you noticed.”

It was still dripping ichor.

“I noticed.” He moved the rifle to his other side.

“What if we’re attacked during the rest of the day and I have to lean over you to reach—“

“Attacked by two vicious teams of mercenaries, or attacked by a harmless little tarantula?”

“It could have been poisonous!”

“It wasn’t going to bother ya!”

I crossed my arms. “Fine. If we are attacked—by gunmen this time—I will say ‘I told you so’ in hell.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome to.” He rolled over, punching his pillow once and coughing.

I reached out, stopped my hand short of touching his back. My eyes traced over the taut lines of bone and muscle under his skin and I imagined how it might feel, but I didn’t.

“I’m sorry.” I muttered.

“Don’t even think they’re deadly.”

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

“You should be. That’s one bullet I won’t have later.”

“What do you want me to say?”

For a moment, he said nothing. He breathed out through his nose, hard, and there was another long pause. “Nothing. It’s fine, don’t... don’t even worry about it.”

“All right. Go back to sleep.”

“Yeah. Wish I knew some language you didn’t speak so I could leave you sitting up wondering what was going on...”

I reached over and mussed his hair. He swatted at my hand, but afterwards, his back relaxed. After a while, he slept.

 

\---/-/---

 

The house was the best short-term solution we had come across so far, but it was only that, a short-term solution. That night we moved on.

The one thing we could be thankful for was the cloudless nights over the desert. With no clouds, there was still enough moon to see by.

Just as fortunate, it was dark enough that I could make out the faint little lights in the distance that meant civilization. Or at least a group of human beings with electricity... I won’t say I hold out much hope for civilization.

“There is a town ahead. We might reach it tomorrow. Or tomorrow night.”

“We could actually get out of this.” He grinned at me. Then his smile fell. “Where do you think you’ll go to, after this?”

“I just assumed I would... I don’t know. I suppose I always imagined myself back in Paris. You know... everyone assumes I am from there?”

“You aren’t?”

I shook my head. “A bit south of there. Not so far south as Vichy, we were above the demarcation line... You know what, it isn’t important. I would rather go back to Paris, it’s easier to get lost in a crowd.”

“And to meet pretty tourist girls looking for romance?”

I shrugged. “I suppose so. You?”

“Don’t even know. Can’t really... I can’t really go back home. Even if I wasn’t worried about being tracked down, it’s not really something I could do... Dad won’t want to see me. He thinks I’m some kind of nut. I mean, it’s a job and they pay me for it, I don’t see how it’s any different from Nasho.”

I nodded and pretended to understand about half of what he was saying.

“That’s where I found out I was good at this.” He hefted his rifle up onto his shoulder for a moment. “Compulsory service. Said I had a gift. Well, of course that didn’t set well with the oldies. Mum just ignores it, mostly, but Dad... What about you? Do your folks know what it is you do?”

“It depends on your cosmology.” I glanced at the train tracks. “As to whether they would be proud or disappointed... I am following the family profession. But... my cause is not so noble.”

“Oh. Uh... so your folks are spies?”

“Were. Yes. I mentioned we lived above the demarcation line. They did what they did for freedom. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. I do what I do for money. And there are no heroes, and no villains, and I do not pretend to affect the fate of the free world very greatly.”

He whistled softly. “Well. That’s... that’s something.”

“Yes. It’s a lot. I don’t think about it all that much. So you will not be going back to Australia?”

“Doubt it. Not for a while. If I did, it’d have to be someplace else, where they don’t know me. Not as if I miss the Burra so much anyway, just copper mines and sheep. Could just avoid the whole south. Yeah, that’d be right...” He snorted.

“Or, we could... we could both go somewhere that no one would expect. For a little while, until we know if we are in the clear.”

“What, you and me? Together?”

I felt my face heat. “Of course not. But... we could travel like this a ways, just... watch each other’s backs until we are safe.”

He was looking at me now as we walked, scrutinizing, and there was a brief moment where he was about to say something. I did not find out what, because he hit the ground hard before he had the chance to spit it out.

“Are you all right?”

“If I find...” He growled, holding onto his ankle. “The bloody fucking rabbit who lives in this bloody hole, I will bloody shoot it bloody twice. I will bloody shoot his bloody kneecaps and I will bloody watch him bloody suffer.”

“Let me see.”

“I’ll be right, just... I might need a hand up, but I can walk fine.”

I sighed and knelt down, gently pulling his boot off. “It isn’t broken.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert now?”

“It isn’t broken.” I repeated calmly. “However, if you would like it to be, I can arrange something.”

“Right. Good to know, not broken.”

“Put your arm around me.”

“You know, I always thought you’d be more suave about this kind of thing. Got to say I’m not really feeling it.”

I took a deep breath. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have any idea. It’s just harmless teasing between men who don’t suspect each other of harboring deep, secret desires. You should neither punch nor kiss him for it.

“Put your arm around me or walk all the way into town on that ankle without my help, and don’t expect me to wait up for you if you choose to do it that way.”

“Touchy.”

“Vas chier.”

“I’ll just guess that wasn’t very complimentary.” He rolled his eyes, leaning on me heavily as I pulled us both to our feet.

It was nice to be the one he needed, even for just a while. I was sick of depending on him so heavily, and being depended on felt better than being dependent. And, it felt nice to have his arm slung across my shoulders, the solid weight and warmth of him against my side. With the sun high in the sky, it could easily grow unbearable, but in the cool of the night, it was comfortable.

It would take longer... we weren’t moving as quickly now. Still, there were lights up ahead. Electricity, water, shelter from the harsh desert, and perhaps we could steal a car. From there... we had time to plan from there. We were almost clear.

 

\---/-/---

 

“Wait here.” I leaned him against the pole holding up the ‘MOTEL’ sign with the flickering ‘O’.

The door to the manager’s office was standing open, a big fan blowing air through the few remaining hairs of a slumbering fat man in a bad sport coat. I cloaked and slipped in, reading over the register, flattening myself against the counter when the tired-looking maid came through, dabbing at her face with a damp hand towel and muttering to herself about her boss.

I returned to the Sniper, who was trying to stay on his one good ankle and hide the fact that he was carrying a rifle. There were no people out and about, and few cars on the dirty little streets. I think we did not cause a fuss.

“There is a vacant room on the ground floor.” I told him, feeling just a little triumphant. “We can stay there for a little while, plan our next move. Our next moves. When we plan on separating. There will be a shower. Beds. Running water.”

He smiled, a little tired but warm and genuine, looping his arm around me once more. “Nice.”

“If someone comes to rent it at this hour—and in this place!—It isn’t likely, but we can leave through the window if that happens.”

“Right, right, good thinking.”

He leaned against the wall while I picked the lock. There were two beds, and I was a little disappointed not to be sleeping right next to him again.

He took the bed nearest the door and collapsed onto it with a grateful sigh. “Couldn’t ask for better.”

“Well... I suppose compared to the past few days...” I sat nervously on the other bed.

He held a hand out towards me. “C’mere.”

“That hasn’t benefitted me in the past.”

“Just get over here. It has so, you’re just too prissy to admit it.”

I perched next to him. “All right. I’m here.”

“Well? Get comfy.”

I wasn’t sure how. After a long moment of deliberation, I tossed my jacket on the unoccupied bed, loosened my tie, and lay down beside him.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about things I never thought I’d have to think about.”

“I know how this goes.” I chuckled humorlessly.

“I’d like us to stick together. For a while, anyway. We’ve managed not to kill each other this long. And, well, now I guess I need you. More than you need me. That isn’t why, though.”

“Tomorrow I will steal us a car. And some food—real food.” I shook my head. “I haven’t had to steal food since I was five, maybe six... it seems so... Well, still, I will get us a car, you can’t walk so much if you want to avoid, ah... you know, your ankle, messing yourself up. And I will make sure we have something to eat. And clothes, I will, I will find us something different to wear. We can get out of here.”

“Where are we getting to?”

“I don’t know. We drive.” I shrugged. “We switch cars, and we keep driving. And then we find a place where we can get lost, and get by. And that is where we will stop. I have no idea what this place is, there were no maps in the office, there have been no signs that give any useful information...”

His hand slid around the back of my neck, and then his lips were on mine.

It was a simple kiss, and soft. This did not stop me from growing half-hard from it.

“Sorry.” He offered a small, sad grin. “You can belt me one if I was wrong there.”

“Wrong?”

“About... bloody hell, I don’t know. I just thought it might—I thought maybe you—“

“You were not wrong.” I grabbed his shirt before he could move away from me, kissing him back, quick and sharp.

“What did you say to me that night in the house?” He stroked my cheek, smiling when I trembled.

“I said... I said that I have a weakness for you. And I was afraid you would see.”

“I didn’t. Just took a lucky guess, really. And I wanted to kiss you.”

I slid one hand up his thigh. “Very lucky indeed.”

He hummed softly, kissing me again, trailing his lips along my jaw, down my neck until my collar stopped him. I cupped my hand over his groin, kneading gently until he was hard, until his hips were bucking up into my touch, and he had his hand under my shirt, hot skin and hard calluses skimming along my stomach.

Our lovemaking was... inelegant. I have not been less than elegant in this since my first—well, second, perhaps—time, but now I was as wanton and as sloppy as anyone, and it was wonderful.

 

\---/-/---

 

“THE TWO OF YOU COMPLETE FAILURES ARE SURROUNDED.”

I started awake, grabbing hold of my Sniper’s arm. “Tell me this is a nightmare.”

“Sounds more like a bullhorn.” He shook his head, frowning.

“IF YOU DISAPPOINT ME FURTHER, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TERMINATE YOUR CONTRACTS. BY CONTRACTS, OF COURSE, I MEAN LIVES.”

“Well, look on the bright side. We still have our contracts.” I tried to force a smile.

“NOW PUT YOUR PANTS ON AND COME OUT OF THERE.”

I paled. We both did. “How did she...?”

“Don’t even want to know.” He zipped himself back up and started buttoning his shirt. I dressed and helped him off the bed.

“We weren’t even followed.” I pulled my balaclava on. “Even if one of us had missed it, we both wouldn’t have!”

When the door opened, I was proven correct, at least. It was not our teams surrounding the little motel, but some kind of... some kind of strike force. A very well-armed strike force.

Heading the charge was a small, dour woman in a purple suit.

“You have the choice of coming back to work for your respective employers.” She informed us.

“You’re the announcer.” My Sniper pointed at her. “Wait, our respective employers? You mean-- you don’t work for RED?”

“She is the same voice that makes all the announcements for BLU.”

“It doesn’t matter who I am or who I work for. You will report for re-training and join up with your old teams, or these men will shoot you where you stand.”

“Give us a moment to discuss the options?”

“I can’t make it any clearer, Mr. Sniper. You comply, or you die.”

I remembered setting out with him. I remember his declaration of taking death in the desert over going back to the endless, pointless war. And now that this woman had shown up, now that more pieces seemed to be falling slowly into place...

“Humour me.”

“Very well.” She shrugged.

“What do you want to do?” He whispered. It was difficult to think with his breath against my cheek. Just one too-brief nap ago it was breaths hot and ragged against my neck as I made love to him, and now I have to think?

“I don’t know. I... What happens if we go back?”

“We stay alive. That’s a plus. We tell the others... I don’t know. We tell them what we found out, for what that’s worth. And we...”

“We have to go back to killing each other?”

“No.” He shook his head, squeezing my shoulder. “We lie, that’s a given. We sneak around. But we get to... well, to see each other.”

“I never did imagine myself being gunned down outside a peeling stucco lice-factory.” I shrugged.

He grinned. “Leave it to me, then.”

The Announcer cleared her throat, and we turned to face her.

“I want a new van.”

The Announcer looked completely out of her natural element for a moment. “... I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah, BLU Demo blew my van up. I’d like a replacement. Be more than happy to come back on board with you, do what you like, but I am gonna need that van.”

“I don’t think you really understand what your options are here.”

“Well, the way I see it, if I was completely dispensable, you wouldn’t even be giving me the option, yeah? So you can take it out of my pay, that’s fair, but I am gonna need the van.”

“That can be arranged. I need you to do something for me, first. Take out your knife, please?”

He did, slowly, his eyes on the several armed men behind her.

“Now stab the Spy.”

“I did not give my answer!” I protested.

“You’ll respawn. It will be just like old times.” She smiled, before turning her cold gaze back on my Sniper. “Do it, and you get your van. We won’t even dock your pay. If you refuse, I will of course have to have you killed.”

I grabbed his wrist, my eyes locked onto his, willing some sort of understanding.

It looked like a struggle. I cursed and pretended to fight back, then impaled myself.

He caught me, his horrified expression graying around the edges, and I heard her praise him before I couldn’t hear anything at all. If she was telling the truth, I will be fine soon enough. If she was lying... If she was lying, then at least perhaps I bought his life.


	5. They Pull the String, and You Jump

I explained, as best I could, to the rest of the team, and eventually cooler heads prevailed, and the accusations of ‘traitor’ ceased.

Which was nice, but I wish I could have explained with just a bit more authority. I had no recollection of the several days that I was apparently missing from the base. I missed two battles and three strategy meetings, and came back with a story I didn’t entirely believe.

The voice that greeted me when I woke up in BLU headquarters—not our own fort, or even any of the other bases we sometimes moved around to, but the main HQ—told me what I should say to my team when I returned. That I had been borrowed for a very important mission. That my activities had been crucial to BLU’s overarching plans. That the information I handled was so sensitive that I had to be put under hypnosis the entire time, and the events wiped from my memory after the fact.

This part, I believed. At least, I believed that someone had wiped several days from my memory. The rest felt... suspect to me, somehow.

Still, eventually my team accepted these events as true, perhaps more easily than I myself accepted them, and there were no hard feelings—or at least, very few hard feelings. At the best of times, my teammates trust me, how you might say, only as far as they can throw me. Part of it, of course, is that they are all just a little bit disconnected from reality, and no one outside the spy class seems to be able to tell us apart—well, that is by design, and after all it is not for nothing that we wear masks all the time—so one of the scouts has taken it upon himself to hate all of us, as if it is somehow my fault his mother is involved with a RED spy.

The soldier, of course, suspects me of being a double agent, but this was true before I disappeared for days on an errand I cannot remember. And our sniper is a self-important fathead who thinks he’s the only damn professional in this war. I don’t even want to think about the soulless little monster who decided my return was the perfect opportunity to make sure I wasn’t actually an enemy... or the medic, who thinks burn victims are inherently funny.

Suffice to say, it was practically a sweet relief when the fighting broke out again.

I left the scout to go after the intelligence and slunk off, giving a wide berth to the mayhem that swiftly ensued, taking long pauses where I could remain perfectly cloaked, and climbing up the ladder to the little roost from whence the enemy sniper worked to pick off our men.

In the relative still of the little nest, the sound of my knife clattering to the floor seemed deafening. He turned, eyes widening, raising his submachine gun and then lowering it again.

“... cher?”

He nodded slowly, and maybe he was having as much difficulty as I in remembering to breathe. I crossed to him, and he pulled me away from the window and into the shadows.

“I remember,” I murmured, letting him strip me of my balaclava. It came in flashes, in hazy moments and bursts of feeling, but it came.

“Can’t believe it’s you... I can’t believe you even—I can’t believe I—“ He shook his head.

“What happened?”

“They told me the trains weren’t running. They told me I went to resupply and there was an accident. They put me in a new van, same as the old one, had me drive back with some ammo, canned food, stuff for th’infirmary...” He held me hard. “They told me I was in an accident and I’d probably remember making the trip if I gave it time. They told me I was on a supply run because the trains got shut down.”

“They lied to me as well.”

“They made me forget about you.”

“Yes.”

He smiled a little. “Hey. Did I give you my water?”

“Yes.” Each word triggering new little floods of memory. “If that house had not been there, you would have doomed us both.”

“Oh.” A small chuckle, the quick press of his lips on mine. “Well, that’s all right, then. Long as that house was there. You... you were afraid of a little spider.”

“It was as big as my hand and venomous. I am not afraid of little spiders, just deadly poison.”

He snorted. “As if it was even deadly poisonous.”

“I remember you... naked, and... and wet, and I couldn’t stop looking and I thought you would see... and then the hotel, I remember...”

“Yeah. The hotel. That was pretty good.” He swallowed. His hands were on my face, mapping detail by touch. His eyes were everywhere, meeting my own, flickering down to my lips, over the rest of me, towards the entryway, back to me, the window, to me, to me, to me...

We kissed again, long and slow and building in frustrated desperation. His body pressed against mine after he sprained his ankle. His foot by my knee in the shadow of sharp rocks. Standing shirtless in the dusty shaft of light in the abandoned half-fort. His expression of surprised, uncomfortable sympathy during some conversation. We had walked together, and talked together, and grown close, and it had all been something so real and so right that had almost been programmed right out of us.

By the end of the kiss, he was shaking, his hands fisted tight in my suit jacket.

“You bastard.” He whispered.

“What?”

“You bloody bastard... you made me kill you.”

I remembered. I hadn’t until he mentioned, but I remembered.

“Desole...” I nuzzled his neck, left a series of soft kisses.

“Hey, now, don’t think you can just be sexy and French and I’ll forget all about this,”

“Cher,” I made a moue of practiced innocence. “Would you ask the sun not to shine? The earth not to turn? The tides to ignore the gentle siren call of the moon? Some things a man cannot help.”

“You made me kill you.”

“Oui. Desole.” Another few kisses. “Really... really I am. It was the only solution.”

“We could’ve... I could’ve...” He struggled a moment. “Okay, so maybe you’re right. Still, you... D’you have any idea how I felt?”

“What do you want me to do to make it up to you? Would you feel better if I killed you?”

“Never have in the past.”

I laughed. “Well. Would you feel better if it was just un petit mort?”

My hand slid down to his belt buckle, I kept kissing his jaw, his neck.

“No... I mean, yeah, but no.” He returned my balaclava. “Get out of here without being seen. Tonight... tonight, meet me. Not here, my—my van. There’s a bed. It’s... well, it’s... something, you know?”

“Ah yes. I suppose it wouldn’t be very professional to do it now. Besides, I suppose anyone could stumble upon us here. That would be difficult to explain.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“Well, I am killing your teammates. I mean, that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I have to go back to doing.”

“Does it bother you that when I leave this place, it will be to do the same, to your side? No. We have our jobs to do. It isn’t as though anyone stays dead, is it? Besides, even if they did...” I thought about my teammates. “I would not mourn the loss so much.”

“Yeah?”

“You will do your job. I will do mine. All it is is work. It does not affect us.”

“Well, except we have to keep it a secret.” He shrugged.

“Oh, and if we were not supposed to be enemies, you would be proud to tell everyone about us?” I lifted one eyebrow. “I think not somehow. You could not brag to your friends, you could not take me home to meet your mother, you could not express any affection for me in public... Could you?”

“No, I... I guess not. Didn’t think that much about it. You being a man was sort of secondary to the problem of you being paid to put knives in my back.”

“If we ever do get out of this war...” I sighed. “You could come with me, you know. It is not... it is not ordinary, but... it is not prohibited. For two men... we could live together, if we make it that far and still decide we like each other. There are places where we could go, where we wouldn’t even be bothered. I mean, you can’t be indecent out on the street, but that’s true anywhere, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t seem like we are getting out of this war.”

“Humor me?”

“Not prohibited, huh?” He gave my hand a quick squeeze.

“Homosexuality hasn’t been illegal since the revolutionary war. Well, except for... you know. For a while, when I was very young. But that wasn’t us, that was... Anyway, that wasn’t us.”

“Think buggery’s still on the law books where I come from.”

“That settles it, then, doesn’t it? You will just have to come with me.”

“As long as I’m humouring you, sure.”

“There’s even the Arcadie. It’s a, a sort of a journal. It’s not important. The point is, as long as one is prepared to be polite and discreet, then one is perfectly free to be an open homophile.”

“... Right. Not sure about the whole ‘open’ bit.”

“You are supposed to be humoring me.” I reminded him.

“Right, then. The war’ll be over and you an’ me’ll just live together someplace or other, and no one’ll even care. Feel good and humoured?”

“You’re a bastard, too, you know.” I kissed him.

“Yeah. It’s probably a part of my charm or something.”

“Probably.” I cloaked and left. The battle would be over soon enough anyway... they never lasted for too long.

 

\---/-/---

 

After the team had finished going over the battle in exhaustive detail and retired for bed, I snuck out to my Sniper’s van.

We were in each other’s arms almost immediately, and almost immediately after that we were naked.

Afterwards, I spent a few moments lying next to him, aware that I had to sneak back before long, just... sort of willing away the knowledge.

“Probably would follow you to France.” He grunted, looking away.

“Really?” I rolled over, draping myself across his chest.

“Look, don’t make a big deal of it, but yeah. I mean, assuming there’s ever an end to this, and assuming that when that end comes, you and I are, you know... Well, by that time we’d have enough of a sort of thing between us that I... I just might. I mean, I can’t go home. And France is probably nice.”

“Better than nice.”

“Right. So why not?”

“Would you enjoy yourself?”

“Dunno.”

“It wouldn’t have to be Paris, you know. It could be the countryside.” I searched through my returning memories for something. “There would not be copper mines, but there might be sheep.”

He laughed. “Honestly, I never need to see another copper mine in my life. I never particularly need to see another sheep, for that matter. But the countryside might be nice.”

“Even if you could never go home... there is a lot of space in Australia. If you really wanted, we could go someplace else there.”

“Well, yeah, there’s the whole interior. Don’t think you’d like it much.”

“Please. I believe I survived the desert out there with aplomb—“

“Well, you survived the desert out there.”

“I’m sure I could handle your interior with equanimity.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Well, anyway, it’s probably just wishful thinking.” I murmured, my face heating.

“When do you need to sneak out of here?”

“Long enough before sunrise that I won’t be caught by any early risers. I should go before I have the chance to fall asleep...”

“That’d be about right.” He sighed, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “Well, any old time you feel like dropping by...”

“I’ll take you up on that.”

“Don’t get caught.” He pulled me in quickly, to a deep kiss, and if I could have afforded to stay, I would have...

“I won’t. Cher, I won’t. I’m good at what I do.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” He chuckled.

“I meant my job.”

“Are you sure?” He waggled his eyebrows at me, one hand starting a lazy meander down my naked back.

“I’m not going to be able to leave if you keep flirting with me...” I warned.

“Go on.” He let me go with a little shove. “Don’t get into trouble on my account. As much as I’d like to get ambitious...”

I glared at him. “This is exactly what I am talking about.”

“I’ll be good.”

“You are staring at my ass right now.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for that.”

I pulled my pants up, and he made a show of groaning in disappointment. I finished dressing while he watched me, and tried not pretend I didn’t appreciate his leering. I slipped out, made my way back to the BLU base, to a quick shower before bed.

I had him. He remembered me after all, and I him, and he was mine. It’s been half a lifetime since I’ve been weak in the knees over anyone, and now he’s mine and I’m his and they tried to stop it and they failed, and even if this war is never over and even if I can’t expect a civil conversation with anyone supposedly on my side and even if I have to put up with being set on fire and shot at every other day, the world is just... just beautiful.

I passed by the infirmary on my way back to my own room, and spotted the medic up late with a book, but he was engrossed enough, and I silent enough, that I reached my bed without being seen by anyone.

I fell asleep with a relaxed smile upon my face, for the first time I can remember.


End file.
